Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
...

Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

The AP reports that the feds intend to torture him without reading his Miranda warnings. The ACLU was quick to point out that the exemption to Miranda only kicks in when there is an imminent threat of immediate and confirmed harm. The feds can’t claim on one hand that the threat is over while, on the other, drooling over the opportunity to deny the suspect due process of law.

We saw a similar phenomenon from the Mass State Police who, in announcing that the suspect was taken into custody, declared that “justice” had prevailed. Actually, “justice” hasn’t even kicked in yet. One would think, as Law and Order is in its 23 season, that Americans could differentiate between “arrest” and “the court system.” the latter represents justice.

Meanwhile, Americans are having a hard time distinguishing between Chechnya and the Czechs, leading the Czech Republic to have to issue a press release directing Americans to a map.

At some point, we’re going to need to have a discussion about the overkill on Friday. Anyone who has familiarized themselves on the psychology of terrorism, included in such great books as Corey Robin’s Fear; the History of a Political Idea, will recognize that Boston was utterly and totally terrorized beyond rationale by all of this, which just sets up for more acts of terror.

There’s is also a growing discussion about the federal occupation of Boston this week. This turns out, it seems, to be not only domestic, but local. There is no federal issue at play. This is about murder, which is a violation of state law. Massachusetts has a state police operation that would be the envy of most countries in the world. This was within our state purview. The invasion of our state by the fed for what is seemingly a violation adequately addressed by Massachusetts law raises serious 10th Amendment questions about the USA PATRIOT Act and its constitutionality.

I suppose that if it turns out that kids died in Waco at the fertilizer plant that obama will head down there in his weird self-declared role of comforter in chief, perhaps to call for fertilizer control. Or does he not visit Red States because there is no political payback to be made? In the meantime, his untimely and ridiculous visit to Boston is just another example of how we are made less safe, not more, by the fool in the White House.